It’s Gotta be in Ya: Fred Smith +Ruth Kohler
February 25–December 31, 2017
Comprising 237 embellished concrete and mixed-media sculptures built by Fred Smith (1886–1976), the Wisconsin Concrete Park is a vista of life-size and larger tableaux. The Phillips, Wisconsin, site, now managed by Price County, is populated with depictions of people, animals, and events from local and national history, regional lore, and from Smith’s imagination.
In 1948, Smith retired from the lumber camps and began building bas-relief plaques and sculptures near his tavern, the Rock Garden Tavern. He created sculptures through 1964, the Budweiser Clydesdale Team being his final and most ambitious work.
The restoration of the Wisconsin Concrete Park in 1977 was the first major project for the Kohler Foundation, Inc., spearheaded by Arts Center Director Emerita Ruth Kohler. Concrete sculptures from the site were on display, complemented by memories of that pivotal experience narrated by Ruth Kohler and set to animation by Souther Salazar.
The Artists
The Responders
This exhibition is supported in part by a grant from the Wisconsin Arts Board with funds from the State of Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Department of Tourism, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Funding was also provided by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Kohler Trust for the Arts and Education, Kohler Foundation, Inc., Herzfeld Foundation and Sargento Foods Inc. The Arts Center thanks its many members for their support of exhibitions and programs through the year. The John Michael Kohler Arts Center is a 501(c)(3) (nonprofit) organization; donations are tax deductible.
The Road Less Traveled 50th anniversary program was conceived by Amy Horst, deputy director for programming. The exhibitions series was organized and curated by Arts Center Curator Karen Patterson. Special thanks to Emily Schlemowitz, assistant curator, for the curation of Driftless: Nick Engelbert & Ernest Hüpeden and Folk & Fable: Levi Fisher Ames & Albert Zahn, and Amy Chaloupka, guest curator of The World in a Garden: Nek Chand and Volumes: Stella Waitzkin.
